In the heart of the Ria Formosa Natural Park, where sea meets sky in a setting of natural diversity and scenic richness, lies Culatra Island. A once-forgotten refuge, it's alive today. It lives on because of the people who fought in the past and who still fight today to preserve it, as well as because of all those who now strive to make it an example to follow for a more environmentally friendly way of life.

In a world increasingly aware of environmental challenges, let's imagine an island that is moving step by step toward achieving sustainability through a circular economy model. This is Culatra Island.

With the Culatra 2030 Project – Sustainable Energy Community, Culatra aims to become a leader in renewable energy. In collaboration with the University of Algarve and several local entities, the project aims not only to decarbonize the island but also to engage the community in developing innovative solutions for a greener, more resilient future.

Located south of the cities of Olhão and Faro, Culatra is an island in the heart of the Ria Formosa Natural Park. Approximately 6 kilometers long and ranging from 100 to 900 meters wide, it has around 1000 inhabitants who live primarily from fishing and traditional seafood farming.

From clandestine occupation to the fight for identity and sustainability

Culatra Island holds a history of resilience and struggle for its identity. Although there are no concrete records of the beginning of the island's residential occupation, it is believed to have begun in the mid-16th century.

What is certain is that the abundance of fish and shellfish in the region meant that Culatra was, above all, a transit point for seasonal fishermen who worked primarily in sardine fishing. Over time, some of these fishermen, as well as their families, decided to settle on the island, building temporary housing, albeit illegally. This settlement was the starting point for the first settlements on the island and the subsequent formation of the community, which, over the years, has grown to currently number around a thousand inhabitants.

Clandestinely occupied for decades, the island lived on the margins of public policy, which resulted in Culatra being excluded by the Municipality of Faro from essential services such as the management and treatment of urban waste.

"When I was a child, life on the island was very difficult. The men went to sea as fishermen, and the women went out to sea as shellfish gatherers. We lived like this, without water, electricity, or sewage. For a long time, Culatra lived in darkness," recalls Rui Conceição, a fisherman who lives on the island.

Until the 90s, all waste produced on Culatra Island was dumped in an open-air dump near the beach. It was from this dump and the lack of sanitation that the first revolt arose, giving rise to the Culatra Island Residents' Association (AMIC), founded by Rui Conceição.

"The waste produced on Farol Island, which was always a nearby seaside resort, ended up in the landfill we had in Culatra. We thought this was unfair, but it ended up giving us even more strength to protest," confesses Rui Conceição.

On July 19, 1987, the people of Culatrense decided to boycott the legislative elections to draw the authorities' attention to the poor living conditions on the island. 

"We were determined. We locked the school to prevent them from opening the polling station, but when they told us that this could be punishable by prison sentences, according to the Portuguese Constitution, we decided to let the polling station be opened, but no one went to vote. People stood outside their homes with stoves and tables to eat, and no one went to vote," says Rui Conceição.

This was just the first step in a series of demands that would change the history of Culatra.

The path to electricity and early advances

AMIC became the voice of the community's struggle for better living conditions. In 1992, the arrival of electricity marked one of the first significant advances in Culatra, but it took four years of electoral abstention to achieve this. Before that, the island faced extreme difficulties in terms of basic infrastructure and essential conditions such as access to drinking water and healthcare.

Sílvia Padinha, the current president of the Association and a resident of the island, recalls the difficult past: "We had no water, no electricity, and access to health care was scarce. The school was only primary school and was inadequate; it even rained inside. Families were poor, and what they had was the fruit of their labor, as there was no support."

In 1987, the same year the Residents' Association was created, Culatra Island (along with the entire Ria Formosa region) received Natural Park status. From that moment on, government policies began to focus on enhancing natural spaces. But this brought with it new challenges.

The Government, through the Algarve Hydrographic Region Administration (ARH Algarve), proposed the demolition of several houses located on the islands of the Ria Formosa due to their environmental impact, their location in risk areas, such as the Ria's protection zones, and the lack of adequate infrastructure with basic sanitation and access to essential services.

Thus began the conflict between environmental causes and human occupation, in which the demolitions on the barrier islands were a good example of popular protest.

The struggle for permanence and identity

This demolition plan sparked a wave of outrage, but the Culatra community resisted the development plan. "They wanted to demolish the homes of everyone who lived here, whether residents, vacationers, legal or illegal. They lumped everyone together and ordered their houses to be demolished. They showed no consideration for a community that had no other way of life than this," laments Sílvia Padinha, who also recalls the feeling of insecurity that gripped the island: "From the moment we learned of the government's intention, we lived with the specter of demolitions constantly hovering over us. We could only imagine the day our homes would be demolished."

"The local authorities didn't want to look at our community. Culatra was completely forgotten and abandoned for many years because we were seen only as poor fishermen who lived here with their families. There were no garbage dumps, all the trash was dumped in the open, there were no walkways to cross the island; everything was made of sand. The houses were the ones the fishermen had built. It's true that there was a lot of poverty, but we are and always have been people," the president of AMIC firmly states.

AMIC's struggle was constant. "We began to realize we had the strength and were able to achieve several things. From the construction of the new school to the increase in medical appointments, which were now provided twice a week, whereas previously, a doctor only came once," recalls Sílvia Padinha. Drinking water was another major challenge: "We even had public health problems associated with the lack of drinking water. Between 2000 and 2010, those were years of great struggle," she adds.

During this period of struggle, the government approved the Coastal Area Management Plan (POOC) in 2005, which aimed, among other things, to protect and enhance the coastal ecosystems of the Ria Formosa. The POOC established rules for the construction and occupation of the islands, with a special focus on environmental preservation and the legalization of existing buildings. In response to the community's demands, the government, which initially proposed demolishing these buildings, recognized Culatra as a fishing community and committed to legalizing some of these fishermen's houses.

It was here that the fight for the island's identity gained momentum. Sílvia Padinha and AMIC demanded that not a minority of houses be legalized, but all dwellings, as they were all owned by fishermen. The fight for the legalization of the houses advanced simultaneously with the implementation of safeguard clauses to ensure that Culatra's identity would not be lost over time.

After years of negotiations, and although the legalization process is not yet fully completed, in 2018 the National Assembly approved a specific statute for Culatra. This statute established that the island's houses would be maintained, with property titles renewable every 30 years, and transferable only to descendants of fishermen who lived on the island and had professional activities related to the sea. This mechanism was created to prevent real estate speculation and to preserve the community's identity.

Over the past few decades, the Culatra community has also secured drinking water and built significant infrastructure. In 2008, the sheltered harbor was completed, and between 2009 and 2010, drinking water arrived on the island.

Years later, in 2017, Sociedade POLIS Litoral Ria Formosa developed an intervention and requalification project (PIR) that included the construction of improved paths, shelter areas, a parish council delegation, a health center with improved facilities, the construction of a civil protection building, an emergency transport vehicle (ambulance cart and boat), and a sports field. "With our strength and resilience, we were able to transform a project that sought to demolish houses into a project to requalify public spaces," says Sílvia Padinha.

The future of Culatra: from resistance to the birth of Culatra 2030

Having overcome these past challenges, the Culatra community remains steadfast in preserving its identity and seeking better living conditions. The island, a symbol of resistance and struggle for decades, is now an example of how a united community can achieve improvements and protect its rights.

If Culatra's struggle was previously for survival and recognition as a community, today the island assumes a leading role in a new paradigm of sustainable development. The path taken in recent decades has paved the way for a more profound transformation: a vision of the future where environmental, energy, and social sustainability go hand in hand.

It is in this context that the Culatra 2030 Project emerges, an initiative that places the island at the center of the European Union's energy transition policies and represents the next step in affirming Culatra's identity — now not only as a resilient community, but as a benchmark for ecological innovation and active citizenship.

The same island that once struggled for electricity and clean water is now on its way to becoming one of the first Portuguese island communities to live self-sustainably, with clean energy, energy efficiency, and participatory community governance.

One of the first steps in this direction was taken in 2017 when the island's fishermen, for whom the day begins even before sunrise, began bringing ashore everything they could find in the Ria Formosa. They were the first in the Algarve and the second nationwide to join the "Fishing for a Trash-Free Sea" campaign, promoted by the Ministry of the Sea at the time, which fostered environmental preservation practices that continue to this day. 

"Both I and the other fishermen welcomed this campaign, but we had a bad habit from way back when. When we were at sea, we would dismantle our fishing nets and throw everything overboard, even the bags and plastic bottles we had on board," says Rui Conceição. 

"I personally always liked bringing the trash I found at sea ashore. Throwing trash into the sea means we'll pick it up again later, whether we like it or not, and there's no point in polluting. But it was a struggle to explain to the fishermen, especially the older ones who had different customs and ways of working than the younger fishermen, that it's important to bring the trash ashore instead of leaving it at sea. It took a lot of explaining and insistence for their habits to gradually change," says Hugo Padinha, another resident and fisherman on the island.

According to these two "Men of the Sea," these days, practically all of the island's fishermen bring ashore not only their own waste but also what they find lost in the water. Among the most frequently found items are plastic bags and bottles, as well as ropes and other fishing materials. 

"Fishing for a Trash-Free Sea was one of the best projects we ever came across, both to save us and to save our estuary and the sea. It's important to save them, especially because if we ruin them, our work and our lives will be ruined," adds Rui Conceição.

But the connection between environmental preservation and the sea doesn't end there. Fishing nets, which previously often ended up forgotten or discarded, are now gaining a new lease on life. "One of the biggest problems we had with trash was lost or abandoned fishing gear in the estuary and at sea, so the Residents' Association encouraged fishermen to hand in their nets to be reused in activities at the social center. For example, we made bags that can now be used by the fishermen themselves to carry their trash or by shellfish gatherers to bring back the juvenile clams they catch. At the entrance to the walkway to the beach, we also have a net where people are invited to deposit the trash they bring from the beach to prevent it from becoming polluted," explains Sílvia Padinha.

Environmental awareness begins at school, where children learn about renewable energy, recycling, and sustainability through hands-on activities. The social center also hosts sessions for all ages on energy efficiency and environmental care. These initiatives bring the community closer to the goal of making Culatra a more sustainable island.

The arrival of the Culatra 2030 Project

With a strong renewable energy component, the Culatra 2030 Project aims to transform Culatra Island into a model of sustainable water management, clean energy, and the circular economy within five years. Time is running out, and the road ahead has been anything but easy.

"When we started, we didn't have anything concrete. It was just a vague idea, something that seemed very unlikely. The idea of making the island self-sustainable seemed like a distant dream," admits André Pacheco, an oceanographer and researcher at the University of Algarve (UAlg) who is also the project coordinator. However, as he describes it, the idea took shape, especially after a series of "happy coincidences" that made the project possible.

According to the UAlg researcher, Culatra 2030 began as a project funded by the Science and Technology Foundation, which aimed to test the feasibility of producing energy from the Ria Formosa tides. To achieve this, a cost-benefit analysis of tidal energy was conducted using a case study. André Pacheco, already familiar with the Culatra community, contacted Sílvia Padinha to obtain data on the island's energy consumption.

However, it quickly became clear that the high costs of this technology made its implementation unfeasible. It was then that the project took a new direction, based on alternative renewable energies, which are more accessible and efficient.

"In conversation with Sílvia Padinha, we discussed that the project wasn't moving forward due to the high cost of generating electricity from tidal currents, and I ended up expressing interest in developing work with other types of renewable energy. That's when the first idea for Culatra 2030 was born," recalls André Pacheco.

"When I discussed the initial idea for the project with André Pacheco and realized that the intention was to focus on energy transition, sustainable fishing, preserving our drinking water, and even reusing our waste, I was immediately interested. It was essentially about examining the problems that exist on the island, and on the planet in general, and understanding how we can collaborate with best practices to improve them and thus serve as an example for other communities. It was a godsend and exactly what I needed to regain my motivation and the will to fight for the island," confesses Sílvia Padinha.

In the early months of Culatra 2030, the team still lacked a structured plan. André Pacheco describes that period as an experimental phase: "It was a loose idea that it would be cool to make the island self-sustainable, but we didn't have a defined strategy. It seemed unlikely and out of the box to us." And that's precisely when the so-called "happy coincidences" the oceanographer refers to began.

One such coincidence happened when the Culatra Island Residents Association joined forces with the University of Algarve to compete for the program. Clean Energy for EU Islands of the European Commission. "We were one of six islands selected at the European level to develop an energy transition agenda," explains Jóni dos Santos, who has been part of the team since the project's inception.

"When we presented the project to the residents, they were all very excited to see what the future would hold. Since the goal of this project is to preserve our territory and thus also help families, everyone was enthusiastic," says Sílvia Padinha.

"I immediately realized this would be a great project for Culatra. After all our progress, using renewable energy to one day achieve independence is wonderful to me," says Rui Conceição. Hugo Padinha agrees: "It's a good initiative, and having researchers from the University of Algarve working to improve life on the island is excellent. I welcome the project and see it as a positive step forward."

Another factor that spurred the project was the recognition of the Culatra fishing community, through which the government officially recognized the island as a consolidated fishing community. This led to the start of the licensing process for the houses, which had already been opened through the amendment to the Water Resources Law, unanimously approved by Parliament: "The legalization of the houses was a prerequisite for many of the initiatives we wanted to implement. Without it, it would have been impossible to move forward with renewable energy solutions," explains André Pacheco.

With the acceptance of the European program's application, the process of developing Culatra 2030 in collaboration with the community began. Through Make it Better, an association for Innovation and Social Economy, a participatory assessment was conducted with the island's residents. "It was mandatory to develop the energy transition agenda together with the population, and it was positive because it identified the island's true needs," emphasizes Jóni dos Santos.

"For example, in terms of energy, Culatra is connected to mainland Portugal via a submarine cable that runs from land, and during the winter there are many power outages. People are used to coming home and having power to turn on their lights, turn on the television, charge their cell phones, or do other activities that require electricity. We in Culatra would often come home and be unable to do any of these things because the cable would break. Sometimes we'd go hours, days, or even weeks without power," notes Jóni dos Santos, also a resident of the island.

In this initial phase there was still no funding for Culatra 2030 and then the Program emerged On Planet B which the Culatra 2030 team competed in and won, winning ten thousand euros to carry out the participatory diagnosis of Culatra, which began to be carried out by the Make it Better team with recurring visits to the island.

The work between the University of Algarve, AMIC and Make it Better resulted in an energy transition agenda based on five pillars: electricity production, storage and distribution, home air conditioning and energy efficiency, access and intra-island transport, water supply and treatment, and waste management and recovery.

The articulation of the five pillars of the energy transition agenda takes concrete form with the creation of the Culatra Renewable Energy Community (CER). The project's main objective is to increase the penetration of renewable energy on the island, as a means of becoming the first fully sustainable Portuguese territory by 2030, making the creation of this CER a crucial step. In January 2023, the Energy Services Regulatory Authority (ERSE) classified this Community as one of four pilot projects nationwide.

Associated with CER is C-COOP - Cooperative for the Sustainability of Culatra Island, a new entity that is both a promoter of CER and responsible for initiatives involving the island.

Jóni dos Santos is the President of this cooperative, officially founded in September 2022 by more than a dozen Culatrenses with the support of the University of Alg (UALG) and three of Culatra's most prominent entities: the Residents' Association, the Nossa Senhora dos Navegantes Association, and the União Culatrense Club. It is the result of collaborative work between these entities and young entrepreneurs who aim to preserve the identity of the fishing community while ensuring a prosperous future for local generations through efficient management of natural resources.

Culatra 2030: what has already changed and what is yet to come

One of the advances that emerged from the development of the participatory assessment is related to the delays in the process of legalizing homes on the island. Given the time it would take to complete this process, the Culatra 2030 team decided to move forward with the installation of photovoltaic units in public infrastructure. Today, they are distributed throughout Culatra: two in the shaded areas of the fishing port, one in the Social Center, one at the headquarters of the Clube União Culatrense, and one at the Elementary School. Furthermore, a storage system with lithium batteries of over 45 kWh was implemented, ensuring energy self-sufficiency for the fishing support facilities at night.

"Currently, 28% of Culatra's energy needs are met during the day by renewable energy. From here, the sky's the limit because we have projects in the pipeline that, if successful, will transform problems into solutions," says Jóni dos Santos. André Pacheco adds: "We submitted a proposal to the MAR2030 Program, which, if approved, will allow us to increase our coverage from 28% to 90% by 2026."

The proposal includes the installation of public and community-based shade structures for fishing workers, improving their working conditions. The proposed infrastructure is expected to be approximately 33 meters long and 10 meters wide and equipped with a protective acrylic coating and photovoltaic panels, thus serving as the physical foundation for the installation of over 200 kWp of photovoltaic generation capacity, increasing the island's energy independence and meeting one of the sustainability and energy transition goals for 2030.

"We've already submitted the application and now we just have to wait. If approved, we'll only need 2030% of the capacity to reach full capacity by 10 and make the island completely energy self-sustainable," adds an expectant André Pacheco.

"The idea, besides further developing Culatra's energy self-sufficiency, is to take advantage of the space and renovate the most degraded area of the island, which is where fishermen work and which supports fishing itself," says Sílvia Padinha.

Furthermore, the green light from the Directorate-General for Energy and Geology is required for Culatra 2030 to be one of four pilot projects in the country testing a self-consumption sharing model. "The dynamic model we intend to implement at Culatra allows us to establish the percentages to be allocated to each family after energy consumption occurs, allowing us to control the flow of renewable energy produced. For example, if family A doesn't use all of the energy allocated to them, the remaining energy can be delivered to family B, which is currently consuming exceptionally more energy. This model also allows for prioritizing energy sharing. For example, family A, which previously provided part of its energy, will have priority over others in the event of a surplus of energy produced," explains Jóni dos Santos.

This new system is only possible thanks to the aforementioned pilot project status granted by ERSE and E-REDES, which allows Culatra to test solutions outside the usual legal framework. However, not everything is smooth sailing. "It's frustrating that we've been stuck in the licensing process for so long, but on the other hand, as an electrical engineer, I can understand some of the reasons for this delay. The electrical grid was designed to operate centrally. With the increasing decentralization of energy production, it's necessary to redouble the security of the electrical grid for it to operate stably," adds Jóni dos Santos.

Once this green light is given, the energy-based pillar of the energy transition agenda will have all its objectives completed: from energy self-sufficiency to the creation of a renewable energy community, to the establishment of a socioeconomic model that allows the value of energy sales to remain invested in Culatra and not be altered by the interests of traders, a process that, according to André Pacheco, is "on the right track."

With all these advances in the energy transition, Culatra shows that it's not limited to infrastructure on dry land. Innovation has also reached the sea. If in 2019, having a photovoltaic boat seemed like a distant dream, today it's a reality sailing the waters of the Ria Formosa. Developed by the Algarve solar company Sun Concept with the help of the island's shellfish gatherers, it's used by all nurserymen to support oyster farming.

"It's a vessel powered exclusively by solar energy that leaves every week for Olhão with cargo from small producers. It's another result of collective work that allows bivalve producers, particularly oyster producers, to improve their working conditions and thus contribute to healthier, more environmentally friendly, and carbon-neutral products from our Ria," says Sílvia Padinha.

The vessel, inspired by the Scandinavian example, took about two years to complete. Luís Fontinhas was one of the nurserymen involved in the development process. "We found that each nurseryman used his own fossil-fuel-powered vessel to transport the product to Olhão, and on average, a combustion engine on a small vessel consumes more than twenty liters of fuel per hour. Let's imagine we had a ton of oysters to transport. Most of the island's vessels don't have the capacity to transport that much, so two or three trips would be necessary, resulting in very high fuel consumption. So, with the solar vessel, which can carry up to four tons of product, we transport oysters from several nurseries in a single trip, saving fuel and protecting the environment," he adds. 

"We try to convey this vision and way of life to the community. For example, with the solar boat, the community realizes they can operate without having to spend as much money on fuel, which meets the savings goal, and they also realize that without wasting fuel, they also avoid pollution. And the message we want to convey is that, for us, the water of the Ria Formosa is almost as important as the water we drink, and we must preserve it. Therefore, we have been demonstrating to both fish farmers and the community in general that this boat is a good example of safe navigation in the Ria," adds the President of the Residents' Association.

With these small steps towards decarbonization in mind, the vehicle supporting the social center that assists with home visits to support families on the island has also switched from a combustion engine to an electric vehicle.

Beyond all this, the island clearly intends to transform what is useless for some into products needed by others. "We have a machine on the island that grinds oyster shells, which at first glance would be discarded, until they are reduced to powder as much as possible. With this, we are focusing as much as possible on sustainable construction goals, because we want to use this oyster shell powder to produce bricks and mortar for construction," explains André Pacheco.

"We already have a lot of product that we've been collecting, and we're working with the Instituto Superior Técnico to understand the full potential of oyster shells and determine how we can use them for other purposes. All with reuse in mind and preventing potentially useful products from ending up in landfills," says Sílvia Padinha.

Together with the Marine and Environmental Research Center of the University of Algarve, they are also preparing a project that will be submitted to the Sea 2030 Program, in which they intend to collect all the organic waste that comes from fishing nets, such as starfish, algae or other materials that are later discarded, to produce biogas that can be used by the island's fishing fleet. 

Both AMIC and Academia highlight the progress made, but Culatra faces challenges that impact the project's development. In a territory like the Ria Formosa, under the jurisdiction of more than five entities, the lack of understanding hinders both complex bureaucratic processes and the lack of clarity and overlapping responsibilities.

AMIC and Academia perceive the municipality as failing to follow through on its commitments under the PIR. The lack of continuity in these initiatives is seen as a sign of institutional disinvestment that could jeopardize the project's future progress. For these entities, this disarticulation could represent not only a logistical obstacle but also a risk of losing trust among the community, which has been the main driving force behind Culatra 2030.

"The biggest problem I can point to in the project's progress is the lack of governance, because the community, the island's associations, and academia are working together effectively. What's missing is a serious commitment from our leaders to the project, because to be a model to follow and an example for other communities, we need our leaders to stand by us, to identify with us and our struggles," says Sílvia Padinha.

André Pacheco reinforces: "To be honest, I didn't expect so little support from Faro City Council. It's true that there were parts of this collaboration with the municipality that were quite good, and there's a close working relationship with some council members, but overall, I think the municipality lacks sensitivity and lacks an action plan to help advance the project. Furthermore, this maintenance is more than deserved and necessary. The residents of Culatra vote for Faro City Council, they vote for the Parish Council, and they are not second-rate citizens."

Aware of these complaints, Faro City Council, through Councilwoman Sophie Matias, told Gerador: "We are aware of several constraints, but we have been monitoring the situation as best we can, given that we cannot intervene and invest in areas that are not under municipal jurisdiction. We are working with the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA) to establish a protocol so that the Municipality can maintain the island's public areas, which are currently under the APA's responsibility. It's a process that takes some time and has slowed down due to the recent election period, but I hope it will now move forward quickly so that these areas can be transferred to the municipality so that we can manage and closely monitor all areas of Culatra on a daily basis."

"It's obvious that the residents of Culatra are citizens of the municipality and, as such, have the same duties, rights, and benefits as other citizens of the municipality of Faro. However, it's difficult for us to carry out any work on the island because, in reality, this responsibility isn't ours, but rather the APA's. We need this protocol, and we need the residents of Culatra to come to the municipality to regularize their construction projects so that we can then inspect the island and make the necessary maintenance investments," he adds.

The story of Culatra is more than a narrative of resistance; it's an example of community transformation focused on sustainability. The Culatra 2030 project represents not only an energy revolution, but also an affirmation of identity, dignity, and the future. Between fishing nets transformed into ecological solutions, solar-powered vessels, and a community that is gradually learning to live for the planet, not against it, Culatra shows that ambition and achievement are possible, even in a small territory facing great challenges.

There are still obstacles ahead, but what has been achieved so far proves that when there is collective will, technical knowledge, and respect for the past, the future can be better and more sustainable.

^{Report prepared within the scope of the Stock Exchange Gerador Ciência Viva for young journalists}